{♥ knitting} - learning a "new stitch a day"

Sunshine Day Baby Throw - My First Blanket

Last December my daughter Katie (15) taught me how to knit and I fell in love with it. It's a calming activity for me - something I need. I knitted quite a few scarves and even made a baby blanket, for a friend's baby, that I was really proud of - pretty awesome for my first try!

I took some time off of knitting during the summer months, I guess it was too hot and I had enough stuff going on already. But now I am back at it and really wanting learn new stitches, techniques, and the knitting lingo. I've been watching lots of videos on YouTube from New Stitch a Day - they rock!!! The tutorials are so great and easy to follow plus there are just a ton of them. I also just ordered this book from Amazon, which was recommended to me and I'm excited to get.

So I decided, that the funnest way to learn some new stitches was to make a patchwork afghan!!! I have read a couple of different theories/instructions on how to do it. I'm kinda just doing it my own way and am 3 squares into it now. The first square (top) in knitted using the stockinette stitch using size US 4/3.5mm needles, the second (middle) was a stockinette stitch too but with a heavier yarn and size US 10.5/6.5mm needles, and the third (bottom) I knitted using the garter stitch and size US 10.5/6.5mm needles again.

The First 3 Squares - Patchwork Blanket

I'm struggling a bit with the sizing because I'm a newbie but I am not going to worry about it. I read this tutorial about knitting a 'swatch afghan' and their squares are no where near all even and it works out for them.

Since I am trying to learn new stitches, and I have already knitted the stitches that I know, I thought I would just go ahead and do an alphabetic kind of thing. I found a stitch pattern glossary and am starting with the first stitch listed, the Andalusian Stitch. I'll let you know how it goes.

As always, I love answering questions and/or getting feedback - so please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for reading. {quirks}

{guest bath} in need

So THIS is my blogging come-back post and it has not a dang thing to do with vintage! But given the fact that I am way prone to changing my thought process every few minutes, it works for me.

If you have read my intro, you already know that I'm a mom of 7 kids, with 5 of them still under the age of 18 and living at home. With this in mind, you can probably understand why there is always some sort of project going on around here. We recently moved into a super great house that is just perfect for us - enough bedrooms, large yard with pool, etc. BUT there's just a ton of stuff that needs to get done or that I want to get done in our new digs (the 'wants list' is much longer).

The first place I knew I had to make a major change was the hideous guest bathroom. It almost killed the deal when I saw it - black bathtub, black toilet, with a black pedestal sink and black mirror - egads!!!! (I grabbed a pic of it off of the MLS just to show how truly rough it was before I got started.)

The Before Pic

Of course we could have spent money to have those things replaced, but surprisingly enough they all looked fairly new and we def didn't have any 'extra' money lying around. So I searched my favorite source of inspiration, Pinterest, and found tons of fab ideas to work with. I still wasn't sure about a color scheme though, what could possible off-set or tone down the black?

I decided the best course of action was to use bright whites and varied silver tones following a trip to HomeGoods, where I found this awesome Lion's Head towel holder. I also found the shower curtain rod and shower curtain there too.

Lion's Head Towel Holder

Once I had some of the accessories in place, replaced the black mirror with a silver one I already had, and began to feel better about the bathroom as a whole - I had to figure out what to do with the white walls.

White Walls

I came across this pin on Pinterest that sealed the deal. This darling nursery wall was created by the owners of the Making Our Dream blog - love it. I followed her instructions almost verbatim, with the exception that I created 6" circles, didn't measure out placement, and smoothed out the air bubbles after cutting the circles. And here is the finished product...

...well ALMOST finished. I have the area over the toilet that I was going to hang baskets, like this, but once I nailed the first one up I realized that this bathroom might be too small to pull that off. So, the one is still hanging, waiting for The Boss to come home and provide his opinion. We'll see where it goes from there. Once it is all officially finished, I will post another pic.

I'm always thrilled to answer questions or receive comments, so please post away! Take care. {quirks}